Final Piece

Here is the piece we ended up with-

Music Choice

In the editing suite nearing the end of completeling our piece, we had to find a piece of music for our project, I had tried to find piece on Myspace and other places on the internet but none of which seemed suitable for the imagery we were trying toget across, each piece of music that I had fgound I put on the film, there would ber a large clash and Jon told us he thought we may need to hunt futhur. We ended up finding the most unlikely piece of music for our film noir, it's a song called Snuff by Slipknot, and slipknot are a well known band with the younger generations, it may even appeal to them when watching the film. The lyrics are about love and drinking to cover your sorrows, this definately fits with the theme of our project.We then had to apply for permision to use the music, we have to pay for the royalties to use it.


We visited the PRS website, this is an example of the form we would have to fill out;
Film Title- Imposter
Context of music use - audio for the background of the opening sequence
Actors involved - Charlotte Bale, Declan Appleton
Overall budget - £16
Territory of exploitation - worldwide
Rights required - Cinema, DVD and TV
License term - In perpetuityMusic Title - Snuff
Artist- Slipknot
Writer - Slipknot
Duration of music - 3 minutes

This form is sent to the people at PRS and they meet with the artist and talk about costs and rights.

Audience Feedback

Today we presented our final piece, ‘Imposter’ to the rest of our class to receive some feedback, we were given comments on forms and conventions (Editing, Cinematography, Mes-en-scene, sound) the narrative, characters, RAILING (representation, audience, ideology, language, industry and use of the genre).

Our audience, the class, was a brilliant way to see if our film really conveyed what we set out for it to do, it was a chance to hear our opiniomns, and if they understood what we were trying to portay character wise.

Most people thought the editing worked well, however some did not like how grainy and realistic we had made the sequence; they would have preferred a crisp smooth product. However, it was a 50/50 split and a number of people liked how raw it appeared. Although it has this rtaw appearence we think it may have been due to the lighting we had used in Charlies bedroom rather than an effect we had added too it when editing.

The titles were not really commented on, a few said they liked the font as it was simple yet stylistic. Various members of the audience said the cinematography was high quality, they really enjoyed the extreme close-ups and they heighten the tension and emotion in the piece, the shots were realistic just like most film noir’s and not too impracticable similar to action or horror films.

On the other hand, they did not like how it ended,as I has said previously we had ran out of time to film the other shots, we also hasnt realised that we hadnt got any suitable toa ct out any of the other parts. The feedback included that they thought there could have been some shots of the other person watching her in the room, and because we didn’t see them it made our sequence edge towards the horror genre. Numerous shots were a success with the audience, favourites include the “camera as a mirror shot” and when the girl is writing in her diary and it changes into the wedding register.The location worked well, the wedding looked realistic and they enjoyed the modern twist on it, with the costume; females in the audience were fond of the pixie boots and unruly hair, not a typical traditional wedding. Using stereotypical features, such as the actress downing the bottle of alcohol was effective as the audience obviously guessed she was depressed and upset. Nevertheless, they thought the bedroom was quite bare, ideas to improve this included placing a wedding photo or more makeup and little pieces would make the room look more 'homely'.Sound in the piece went down extremely well, it’s was obviously not a typical noir theme, yet everyone thought it added to the emotion of the piece, the lyrics went well with the storyline, as well as the voiceover. The title and voiceover added to the enigma as the piece, it wasn’t too dramatic.The characters we used weren’t too stereotypical in appearance but students agreed they would definitely relate to the target audience (15-24yr olds), the storyline is quite complicated but many of the audience got the main ideology of it and thought we used the conventions of film noir suitably, and liked how we had challenged them using modern costumes and a contemporary sound.The audience watching concluded they would like to watch the whole of our film and we effectively filled our brief given at the beginning of the project.

Editing And Titles

Editing And Titles

Today Charlie and I discuss her ideas about editing and titles, we figured out who would be what role, and went off our seperate ways to write on our specialty subject, the writting below is what she wrote for our preproduction.

After watching many traditional and contemporary films noir's I noticed the main feel of the editing was a fast cutting pace to emphasise the tension and to keep the audience on edge throughout. They create an intense atmosphere giving a stylistic appearance and to heighten the emotions of the viewer.We want the flashbacks to start by showing most of the clip to reveal, and then start to decrease the length of them to make them appear almost frantic showing that the actor is feeling emotional and all the memories are slowly coming back.The cuts between the flashbacks and other shots we will use a sweeping transition which was blurry to contrast between what is actually happening and what is a just memory, moreover to demonstrate the change in location. By editing all the flashbacks to be in black and white this will show that she is recalling her deep rooted memories; another way we can convey this is making them quite grainy to show they were from the past, she only can recall flickers from the day. By putting these in black and white, it is using a traditional film noir feel to the sequence as they tend to be filmed in this way, especially the earlier ones, because of the equipment that was available to film with in. I don’t want the transitions to be that noticeable and dramatic, I don't want them to look strange and out of place.After much trial and error with our storyboard, we have decided to place the titles at the end of the sequence, the main title ‘Imposter’ will be shown just before the last clip, i don’t think they should be during the sequence as this could break up the action and the audience could lose interest. All the titles will use the same font to connect all of them together; this continuity is used in a range of films, not just film noir. We will use a black background with white stylish writing, this will link with the film noir theme.

StoryBoard

Media Evaluation

Media Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, developor challenge forms and conventions of real media conceptions?

To create our media production our aim firstly was too use various forms of research for us to understand codes and conventions apparent in the film noir/thriller genre. First in class was to do primary research which was conducted in the form of viewing films such as Double indemnity (1944), and Brick. All the moves we had viewed in class meant that we were able to get a rough idea of what particular specific film noir characteristics we must add, and the observations we made a note of, and hopefully would find a way to incorporate it into our piece. The narrative and generic conventions created more depth to form the basis of our ideas.

Our group’s ideas from class were contemporary and fresh, but yet simple and linear narrative helped to draw in the audience, including them. The use of enigma was present at the end, using common convention drawing and capturing the audience. During our ongoing research for our project we managed to create representations of the main characters, including the introduction of a femme fetale in the first scene of our project, playing on codes and conventions using the femme fetale meant that we had added an element of mystery and gloom to the piece, which is intriguing and would provoke a reaction.

2.How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media represented social groups in a through way throughout apart from that the older social groups, such as 20-25 had a poor reputation as there; our femme fetale is an alcoholic.

Our media product didn’t have many varied social groups or classes in it; it obtained the average, everyday working class, yet also higher class. The couple who were getting married were the couple of a higher social status, and the woman who decided to steal the bride’s identity was the middle class woman, wanting to ruin the marriage for not just love for her, but the wealth in the family. The location of which we filmed looks quite grand, for a family who have a lot of wealth.

We were trying to represent the woman who stole the bride’s identity more of sad lonesome woman, of lower social class although this probably isn’t portrayed well in the project, it was the initial idea. The costumes that we have used throughout the media project have all been those of a higher class status, as the imposter wipes off her make up in one of the scenes she is wearing a well fitted black dress, it shows how she’s used the wealth of the family on herself. The bride and groom are wearing traditional wedding outfits.

3.What kind of media institutions might distribute your media product and why?

I think our projects would be distributed on such TV channels which are the ones that are less popular, one for a specialist subject. I think Film 4 would suit our target audience. If our film were to be shown it would be in a small art house theatre as it’s a very small budget film. Somewhere such as the Ipswich corn exchange it may be shown, it wouldn’t attract a huge audience, but some of the public. Our film opening obviously wouldn’t have subsidy as we wouldn’t have the funds, so for people to watch our film it would have to from word and mouth from people who has already seen it. To hit our target audience, the main way of getting them in would be too be a school showing rather than out of choice, unless they already knew what film noir was and found it thrilling, but many from our survey didn’t quite understand. I would suggest that perhaps Blue Dolphin would be a possible distributor for us. www.bluedolphinfilms.com being an Independent distributor. Blue Dolphin has distributed films for over 25 years. The company also co-produces feature films and television drama.

'Blue Dolphin PR & Marketing is a division of Blue Dolphin Film & Video, one of the UK's longest running independent film distribution and production companies. We specialize in arts and entertainment publicity for feature films at cinemas, DVD and Video releases and for TV programmes and music PR.
Blue Dolphin first branched out into publicity and promotion in the mid 1980s. Our ethos is built around our passion for the entertainment business in general, our highly knowledgeable members of staff who bring various positive skills to client briefs, strong client servicing and formidable results that often exceed client expectations. That is why our clients include major film studios, terrestrial and non-terrestrial broadcasters and independent distributors and production companies in the film, music and TV business. They have included BMG, Island Records, MGM, Universal Pictures, Warner Brothers and BBC Worldwide.
Blue Dolphin PR & Marketing operates as a separate business from Blue Dolphin Film & Video and Blue Dolphin Productions but draws upon the invaluable experience, connections and contacts from its parent company's knowledge of the film, music and television business.'

4.Who would be the audience for your media product?

The typical demographics of our audience will be all genders, ethnicities and within the 15-25 age bracket. Initially our media was aimed at 15’s and over, as an age rating, but now looking at the video finished, it was quite advanced so it would be aimed at much of the public above fifteen too. Although I do not think many people below the age of 15 would have the strategic to work out what was going out, and would be able to settle down for long enough and figure out the film, the characters and the plot.

While learning about the BBFC we realised that the lower the age rating you put for your film the more likely it’s going to make more money due to the amount of people being able to come and watch it, older ages would restrict many of the audience viewing this film.

A passive audience sits back and observes while an active audience participates. I would say that aiming the film at fifteen year olds and above we would have a range of a passive audience the older they were, yet the younger ones would become more engrossed with the media product.

Our group created a survey of sorts on what film noir was, and the characteristics of noir, many of them had barely any knowledge on the subject meaning that they wouldn’t quite realise what a noir was unless the film was black and white. To find out how to make our film have a noir quality a lot of our research was done on the internet and reading up on history of previous film noir films.

5.How did you attract/address your audience?

To attract the audience, you must have a soundtrack which would complement the actors and how and what they are doing in the piece. Our feedback from the film was that the soundtrack was a big positive, relating to audience pleasure it made a few of them cry. It was almost like the audience was able to relate to what they were seeing on screen, and the song would help the atmosphere in the piece. Film noirs are tense, dark and ambiguous, this is what makes them a genre of their own and they create this effect by using shadows and noises. To attract the audience we used young people in our piece, a young couple who had just got married, now too people from 15-20 it may not appeal so much, but those above that age would appreciate a couple getting married. As I have said in the above our location was well suited to our story, yet it was set in a fairly old grand place. Not something of modern society, yet it is where a marriage takes place and you would think those of 15 and above would understand this. A percentage of the audience would have a thrill from watching film noirs on a screen, during a scene of action, as it has been proven too increase heart rate and adrenaline rush to the viewer; this is known as audience visual pleasures. This also offers escapism as a diversion and offers surveillance and voyeuristic pleasures.

Our piece wasn’t that which would attract teenagers off hand; if they could appreciate the characteristics and style of film noir I think they would have more positive opinions on the film.

Our main storyline will hopefully have attracted the crowd, it is a fairly complex story but one of which people would hopefully be interested in the sense that it has much too it.

6.What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

During the research stage I have come to find a lot of information which has been useful to me during my making and coursework for our film noir project. I have used various websites such as YouTube, Google, MySpace just the internet in general along with the library.

These were all too finding initial ideas for the piece and were set as homework.

In the planning stage for our piece I used blogs to read up on how other people had gone about creating their film noir pieces, or things which were similar. Windows media came in handy, and although I didn’t have a lot to do with editing the movie, I was always there to watch what was going on, a lot of which seemed confusing. We used windows media to get our music from.

I was the main director for our project; I was using a Canon HV30 DV, a YOGN shotgun microphone, boom pole, headphones and a Velbon DV 7000 tripod. Using this equipment we created flashbacks will be used throughout our opening sequence, and we hope to achieve a cold and gloomy effect during the flashbacks to make it uncomfortable for the audience to look at, this is because traditional film noirs use effects to make the audience feel uncomfortable to create tension, this is one of the things you can do to get the audience glued to the film. So to make this happen I had to use the editing suite, but before this as we captured the footage we just did clips of 10 seconds along, perhaps a bit shorter, when put on the computer we used a dissolve effect to make the flashbacks merge into each other. We were able to create this using Adobe Premier pro, by compressing files from the camcorder. Using Adobe Premier Pro, Charlie was editing using transitions, cutting straight from one shot to the next directly replacing one shot for another, we used them during flashbacks, which were dissolves. The last scene was a fade, where it faded to black. The soundtrack we came to use was a track called ‘Snuff’ by slipknot, I would say this was parallel sound, reflecting the action in our film.

Have to use 3 point lighting was a lot harder than we had originally thought, in a small room, having oto much light can easily overwhelm it, not having enough you can’t quite make out the character.

7.Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

From the last preliminary task I have seen vast improvements in what we have now created, I think being in a different groups really have made a difference, by working with people who are more willing to compromise. Although I do say this I will be slightly contridotory in the sense that I feel one member of our group didn't participate as much as he could have, and showing the will too, never acted upon it.

In our preliminary we hadn’t taken enough shots too put onto the computer. The performance throughout the opening sequence was subtle, there wasn’t an overwhelming large amount of faces being shown throughout but more, little parts of what they were wearing, such as the props. Realising we hadn’t taken enough shots and the preliminary exercise not flowing as much as well as we would have liked it too, we took this into consideration, although we may have done that, again, our shots were lacking in handles and lacking in shots altogether. It was a large flaw. This has happened because we didn’t manage our time efficiently, we paid more attention n collection props and deciding where too film our scenes rather than getting down to it, and ending up filming it, when we had gotten to the location we had to set up the camera and the actors has to get dressed.

Our preliminary exercise we has also lacked time, yet we were able to rush it more as it wasn’t so important we managed to add handles to it, but has a large lack of shots, this time we has improved it slightly. For our film noir piece we thought we had arranged the time in a suitable way, yet we were sadly mistaken, I think we could have added more to the ending of ours, but weren’t able to because of time. In our film noir project we has used a voiceover, this was something that we has never done before but the script I had wrote I was able to hear back, as someone spoke it. As the director and scriptwriter I wish we had been able to collect more shots, there was a lot of potential with our ideas, and we didn’t quite push it to the full extent. During my time of filming this I have learnt how to prepare for filming using the microphone and checking it’s the right sound level or if the sound is even working, and using the camera, there is a lot more detail too it than one might think.

There was a lot to dead space in the preliminary, and I made sure I was using all teh space I had in this. Although I had used many mid/close up shots, too many, I would have rather included some other shots as well.

The aim of this production was too create our own take on the contemporary film noir genre; I think our group successfully composed this, even if we could have made many improvements.

5th Production Meeting

Today we edited the rest of the sequence, we put the camera footage from Charlies bedroom onto the editing suite and merged it with the voiceover, it ended up sounding really good, and matching well with the footage. It was a lot better than we all anticipated.

We decided to re write the end of the script to help the audience understand what is happening better and also to add to the enigma; we realised that what i had origninally wrote was starting to sound like a poem, and the audience would probably have a hard time understanding the storyline.

"Karma comes back around (a knock on the door) and I can't hide any longer..."
Too this line there is a knock on the door she looks up, worried, and the shot becomes blurry, it gives the intention that someone has come to get her. Also this way the audience are intrigued, and we've left it at a dead end.

I think the whole group were dissapointed with the end shot, we figured there could've been alot more if we had bene more prepared and organised, it's fairly short, but we haven't had the chance to film more, than edit it all.

Complete Script

Imposter Script

BLACK FRAME

(Laboured Breathing)

GABRIELLA (VO)

This mind, this lifestyle, this identity, is nearly over.

Who am I?

Not even I know anymore…

INT. GABRIELLA’S ROOM. NIGHT.

(GABRIELLA is trembling, standing alone in the centre of her eerie room. She is clutching a half drunk bottle of rose wine, her skin is pale, with an expression of grief on her face. You can see she has been weeping for hours)

GABRIELLA (VO)

I can’t take much more of this, the lies, the deceit. I’m stuck in this black hole because heartless.

I couldn’t protect you. We can’t protect your identity.

But now I’m left picking up the pieces.

GABRIELLA (VO)

The mask of deceit and lies is worn well by some for they can't tell the truth. So they remain unhappy, Within their prison of secrets. A life that has become an addiction, one I must carry on, one I will carry on, one that I need to carry on, for I have gotten this far, with my companion of alcohol for comfort. C/U (GABRIELLA makes no sound but the wails of anger and sadness, she shakes her head, and wanders over towards her mirror where she places the bottle of wine on the table, she sits and stares at the bottle)

GABRIELLA (VO)

I’ve been pretending I’m safe, that I’ve finally found this better place, but there are so many worries that I need to forget yet the time is still present and I’m so full of regret.

(Gabriella’s make up has run down her face merged with tears, and as she slowly looks up towards the mirror her face is flooded by tears which she wipes away discreetly as if there were someone watching, she sits and stares at her own reflection in the mirror)

Flashback VO-

If you were to see her, she painted the perfect picture, a smile that could put the brightest lights to shame. And stars shone excitedly in her eyes.

GABRIELLA VO

Whisper- With only reflections of what she left behind
and memories her mind races to find...SHRIEK

(GABRIELLA is interrupted and does not finish her sentence as she sees something in the mirror of which is not her own reflection.

The sound of heavy breathing and heartbeats are merged together)

MERCIA OS

(Quiet sniggering laughter)

(GABRIELLA begins to get her breathing back to normal, the silhouette of this figure is approaching the mirror, and she grips her wine bottle and turns around to face the silhouette, only for there to be nothing there)

GABRIELLA VO

I’m deluded, I’ll a delusional drunk, and this is what I’ve become. You do anything long enough to escape the habit of living, until the escape becomes the habit.

(GABRIELLA turns back to look in her mirror, she does not look around afraid of what she may see, her teeth are chattering, the room has gone cold, and the lighting has dimmed, she shuts her eyes for a moment)

(MERCIA approaches her slowly from behind, in an elegant manner, ending up behind Gabriella)

MERCIA VO WHISPER

She's caught up in that fairytale love
You know
The kind Romeo and Juliet would be envious of
Where the taste of honey lingers with each kiss
Above all, Reciprocation, her deepest wish

C/U

(Gabriella’s eyes, and then MERCIA's)

MERCIA VO

Trembling

For the love she has now, will soon devour, it first tasted sweet, but has since
turned sour

SFX: The shatter of a glass

Last Scene (Glass flies at the wall, the wall then is trickling down with blood or wine, the audience will not realise which)

OVER

FADE OUT TO BLACK

2nd Day of Filming- Charlies bedroom

Charlie Bales Bedroom:

Our 2nd location which was Charlie’s bedroom, was slightly awkward for what we wanted to film as we later found out when it came to placing certain things in different places, we couldn’t get every camera angle right as you’d be able to see a poster on her wall, or her whiteboard, so in the end we had many shoddy shots. Her room is quite small meaning it was difficult to find a perfect spot to place a camera, as most of the filming was filmed as her looking into the mirror; I had to make sure the camera reflection wasn’t seen in the mirror.
Our props were put to good use, before the day of filming we went and collected what we needed, the wedding dress from a charity shop, which we then ended up altering slightly, considering it was 5 pounds, we thought it was a bargain, and that if it were ruined, we wouldn’t end up being devastated. Dec already had a suit from which he has worn previously. We went to a joke shop in which we spent about an hour choosing the hair for our newly wedded wife to be seen in. The most important prop was probably the rings, as these send out a significant message to the audience.

The 2nd location in Charlie’s bedroom has very much again low key lighting, this is supposed to be the most awkward and confusing part of the opening sequence so we didn’t want to be showing a large amount of light, instead of using the high voltage lamp we were given we decided to use one of the lamps from our props which was on the dressing table.
The performance throughout the opening sequence was subtle, there wasn’t an overwhelming large amount of faces being shown throughout but more, little parts of what they were wearing, such as the props. Location 2 at Charlie’s house we begin to focus more on the woman herself, every detail about her, so much so, as she takes off her makeup, we decided to use the camera as a mirror as she stares directly down the lens, as if to be looking directly into the audience.

1st Day Of Filming Christchurch Mansion

Filming Day One (Christchurch Mansion)

Today we set out too film our flashbacks for the Film Noir proejct, the location we found we much better suited than we first thought, the room's are actually how we wanted and because we booked it there was no schools or vistors to stop us filming, we headed down to Christchurch park around ten after collecting all the equipment from college, we also spent half an hour checking the equipment worked and that we had our tapes.

This has provided better imagery for the audience than a typical church, we felt the mansion has more of an eerie feeling which would contrast with the goings on in the actual scene which were optimistic and in general, very bright feeling. Considering someone was getting married. It was perfectly functional inside for all our needs and wants due to the long staircase, the wedding room which people from the public actually rent out for their personal weddings, and the feel and look of the place added to the atmosphere of what we were aiming for, with the marble status, and fireplaces, alongside large portraits and grand chairs.
The lighting and colour in the mansion was very gloomy and dim, very much low cast lighting, it portrayed a feeling of almost, being haunted, compared to being outside where the couple walks into the mansion where it’s apparent to be daytime, and the mood changes as it’s such a contrast between the two locations almost. The couple were holding hands outside the mansion as they walked in, we thought this would really signify their love as the sun was shining down, so there would be high key lighting and the audience would be able to tell this was an upbeat part of this performance.

4th Production Meeting

Production Meeting 4- Editing

Today we edited our flashbacks, we decided to brighten the images and put them in black and white. I decided to add a grainy effect onto them so they looked as if they were old photographs, we were also inspired by the opening to Seven which i looked at, we were trying effects to make the screen flicker but none of them looked right.

We also recorded our voiceover today, we ended up cutting the script down as after filming we saw that some of the lines didn't really fit. We also thought about re writing the ending so that the lady turns around looking scared then theres a blackout, but the voiceover is still going, as this adds more enigma, we were worried filming the dead bride and live one will look tacky and may not work, if it works well it would be brilliant however if it isn't filmed properly it will look poor quality.

3rd Production Meeting- Props, Audiences and Influences

Tomorrow is the day of filming, we have decided to go out and collect props tomorrow, which will be put to good use, the wedding dress from a charity shop will be a good buy, we aren't intending on using anyone's because obviously it's a sentimental object. Being from a chariety shop (if we're lucky enough to find one) we can alter it slightly.

Dec the actor who is playing the Groom has already got a suit from which he has worn previously. We will be going to a local joke shop in which we will probably spend around an hour choosing the hair for our newly wedded wife to be seen in. The most important prop will probably the rings, as these send out a significant message to the audience.

Props and costume-
Rice
Wig
Wedding dress
Tie and suit
Vale
Ring
Bottle of Wine
Jewellery
Notepad
Make up

In thnis meeting we have also looked into what audeicnces wnat, and the right age range we will be directing this movie at, for our 'niche' market, to bring into the cinemas the largest amount of people we can which would be above 15 as this is what we have rated our film at. As this is this case there is reasoning in that I do not think many people below the age of 15 would have the strategic to work out what was going out, and would be able to settle down for long enough and figure out the film, the characters and the plot.

While learning about the BBFC we realised that the lower the age rating you put for your film the more likely it’s going to make more money due to the amount of people being able to come and watch it, older ages would restrict many of the audience viewing this film.

We created a questionaire to get more of an idea for the people who would be likely to view this:

Task 5
Questionnaire-
How old are you? 16-20 21-25 26-30 30+
Do you know what Film Noir is? Yes/No
What’s your favourite film genre?
Do you prefer black and white films? Yes/No
How many black and white films have you seen?
Do you watch films frequently? Yes/No
Who would be your favourite type of character?
Do members of your family watch black and white films? Yes/No
If so, who?

2nd production meeting

This morning Marc Charlie and I has another meeting for the discussion of our media project, this time we were to decide upon what would represent our Mis-En Scene.

MIS-EN-SCENE


We has choose a church just by college, but after discussion we decided on the Location of Christchurch mansion, we thought would provide better imagery for the audience than a typical church, we felt the mansion has more of an eerie feeling which would contrast with the goings on in the actual scene which were optimistic and in general, very bright feeling. Considering someone was getting married. It was perfectly functional inside for all our needs and wants due to the long staircase, the wedding room which people from the public actually rent out for their personal weddings, and the feel and look of the place added to the atmosphere of what we were aiming for, with the marble status, and fireplaces, alongside large portraits and grand chairs.


We have chosen our 2nd location which was Charlie’s bedroom, we arent quite sure of the size and how the camera will sit and may find it awkward for what we wanted to film. Her room is quite small meaning it was difficult to find a perfect spot to place a camera, as most of the filming was filmed as her looking into the mirror; which means I'll have to make sure the camera reflection wasn’t seen in the mirror.



The lighting and colour in the mansion was very gloomy and dim, very much low cast lighting, it portrayed a feeling of almost, being haunted, compared to being outside where the couple walks into the mansion where it’s apparent to be daytime, and the mood changes as it’s such a contrast between the two locations almost. The couple were holding hands outside the mansion as they walked in, we thought this would really signify their love as the sun was shining down, so there would be high key lighting and the audience would be able to tell this was an upbeat part of this performance.

The flashbacks the couple are getting married, So our actors will do thier best to look excited, happy, in love and pleased to be together, as the two actors are currently together in real life this should be easy to perform! They will show affection through holding hands and small kisses to the face and other improvised ways, nothing obvious and over the top.

The 2nd location is in Charlie’s bedroom has very much again low key lighting, this is supposed to be the most awkward and confusing part of the opening sequence so we didn’t want to be showing a large amount of light, instead of using the high voltage lamp we were given we decided to use one of the lamps from our props which was on the dressing table.The performance throughout the opening sequence was subtle, there wasn’t an overwhelming large amount of faces being shown throughout but more, little parts of what they were wearing, such as the props. Location 2 at Charlie’s house we shall begin to focus more on the woman herself, every detail about her, so much so, as she takes off her makeup, we decided to use the camera as a mirror as she stares directly down the lens, as if to be looking directly into the audience.
n the other scenes, the femme fatale should look drunk, untidy,lost and upset. She will be downing red wine straight from the bottle, this will make her look desperate, downing her sorrows. Her makeup will be ruined, all down her face from crying, she will still be weeping in the sequence. In the end scenes, she will look as though she has just heard something and is shaken by it, looking scared and anxious.

1st production meeting

Today Charlie Marc and I had our first meeting for our Film Noir opening. We each has gone away and written our own synopsis, which wasn't very long, quite brief but at the same time detailed.
We each read ours out too each other and decided to collaborate all 3 into one, too show we had each contributed to our synopsis, each of us having good and different ideas.
Jon read our synopsis and at first found it too confusing, not quite understanding the plot and the characters. We sorted this out, and then were told we hadn't got enough film noir characterstics and we had to figure out how to incoporate this.

We ended up attempting to make our actors have more film noir characterstics, we needed to includ flashbacks too presnet our opening to have more of a film noir quality.

The Exchange Evaluation

Above: 1minute 32 seconds exchange work

The Evaluation

After we had filmed the exchange, we had the chance to edit them, in the editing suite at college to then show the class the following 2 weeks ahead.
From the class being able to watch our video, they participated in our audience feedback, mentioning the pros and cons of our video.

As i had previously mentioned we originally had an idea when Jon first announced the exchange, we filmed it in about half an hour, only too look back on it and realise how terrible it was. We did not have the right costumes or makeup, and not even the right location as it was already in use, we could have avoided this by having a better plan, by planning ahead Ending up in our group re shooting for our new exchange piece.

When the video was shown too the class there was no immediate positive or negative feedback.

From the begininng of the video we were complimented at the shot of Charlie and Jess near the beggininng, in which they are both in the shot, a close up of both thier heads. We were able to portray the feeling of eerie-ness, and as we were also able to get the sky in you could tell the atmosphere was rather gloomy.



Costume- Again, we weren't very well prepared, Jess' costume did compliemnt the whole enigma of the 'Femme Fetale' her long black trench coat, and heels, also her long hair helped with the persona of her character.

No one mentioned Charlies costume, but we felt that we had achieve making her look like the terrified adolecent.


Location- Our location was mentioned, as a good place for filming The Exchange. As no one else had done it near the docks, most had forgot what atmosphere we were able to create, long pathways and a large open view of the sky along with the water gave us the right scenery for which we wanted to create for the typical film noir look.


Music- As we had filmed our piece again, we forgot about getting a music track for our piece. As we Jon to look through it again, to check it, he was able to add a piece of music.

Although much of the audience didn't think it was suitable for the piece, it was described as sci-fi and as if aliens were about to land.


Cinematography- Our very first scene in my opinion was one of the best, as the camera panned as charlie turned to the right, the wind at the docks was just what we needed, it gave the audience a sense of how cold it was, windy contributing to the atmosphere. Most of our shots went down fairly well, although it was mentioned how there was dead space in ours, meaning we hadn't used up all of what was in the shot, a space in which nothing was happening.

In our piece we came to the conclusion that we needed more footage, this was pointed out as Charlie one minute was one place standing up, and the next she was sitting on a bench. There was no shot to show her going towards the bench. Also she had a note which was pristine in one shot, and the next it was obvious something had happened to the note as it had been scrunched up, this was an accident but we should have realised and done the shot again.

Overall our piece wasn't critizised to a point in which we thought was terrible, everyone had faults and it was just a chance to improve on our next piece of filming.

Film Openings

This week our media group has been looking at film openings and what makes a film opening.

'What is it that makes a great opening sequence? It's a personal thing, of course, but when a film grabs your attention from the opening frame, knocks you out of your seat or even grinds you into it, you tend to remember it fondly, even if the rest of it fails to measure up.'

I have chosen The Life Of David Gale as my first film opening.
I have chosen this opening sequence as it really caught my attention, it intrigued me, I wanted to know what was going to happen throughout the rest of the movie. You see a car driving down a straight road a woman gets out and starts running.

It's an opening which shows you, the last scene. One of which really grabs the audiences attention, casting a sense of mystery upon everybody. It's dramatic, almost breathtaking, and full of action.
A solicitor for a man put on death row is running, this is a long shot, and then becomes a mid shot. It pulls you in because you can see she is panicked.

The location it has been set on is a long dusty road, along fields and farms, a small village, or town's apparent that barely any people live there, so it fairly deserted, it gives a distinguished sense of eeriness. She tries to get a ride from a passerby yet, he drives straight past her. She looks as if she is determined to get somewhere, or perhaps running after someone, yet the viewer does not know which yet.

The lighting is fairly dull, the weather being mild, yet her hair is blowing around as she runs down, as the place is rather dusty you would assume the weather to be humid, almost creating a tense atmosphere for the viewer. The music which is heard makes your adrenaline rush, almost making you panic for her, although you do not realise what is happening. It's a serious tone of music, Ominous Drums/Ominous Pascal it's almost a piece too get your heart racing, it's very much a 'clunky' piece of music, metal drums, and cogs. It's a very eerie piece.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6kw2jaU4lQ

Director- Alan Parker
Release Date- 14th March 2003

The Exchange Preperation

The Exchange Preperation-

During the last weeks of college, before the Christmas Holidays, as groups in the class we were too film a short video sequence of something called 'The Exchange', which was 1-2 minutes long.
We were put into groups of 4 and it was up to us to think of everything we could possibly do to make it appear as a film noir,such as Mis en scene- location,props, costumes. The lighting, sounds etc. As there was no narrative, we just used a music track.

At first it seemed like an easy task, drawing up the storyboards, completing a call sheet, synopsis, treatment,video risk evaluation sheets (for the location). As we were having no narrative in these, it made them easier to complete in a short amount of time.

Storyboard link- http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h105/suzioi/SB_exchange.jpg

My group was composed of Jess, Charlie, Maya and I. For what we thought was an easy task we hadn't put enough planning into it. We ended up trying to film it in an hour outside the college, when we had uploaded the video onto the computer, we realised how dreadful it was and had turned out like a drug exchange on crime watch. We were thoroughly disappointed with the outcome but not surprised. During our own time at college we decided to re-film it as we couldn't be showing the previous video in front of the whole class.
We then re-drew the story board and relocated.


Synopsis- A girl walks alone, ever since a member of her family had been in a tragic accident she senses she’s being followed by a silhouette… When she can feel that she is being followed, there is woman following her yet this girl cannot see her.

The girl stops and looks around only too see no body near her. She sits on a bench by herself waiting for her friend’s arrival, when a woman appears beside her, dressed in black. She whispers something in her ear, then hands over a piece of paper. The young girl opens the note anxiously, and reads. She then looks around too see if she can spot the woman again, but there is no sign of her.


Costume- For the outfits we used for the characters, Jess was the femme fatal, she wore, a long black trench coat, with heels, it gave her the look of a woman who was in control and knew what she was doing, yet at the same time she was able to portray herself in a mysterious and intimidating way.

We wanted the girl (Charlie) too look innocent, in the film she is wearing a floral print dress, and leggings and dainty shoes, it presented her as a young adolescent, who would look overwhelmed by what she received with a look of fear.

With the editing there were many shots which we couldn’t end up using because they didn’t fit or flow with the rest of them, after we had finished the edits we realised we hadn’t got enough shots to even make the film flow properly, as one scene Charlie just appears on a bench, without walking over too it.

Props- We only had one prop for the whole video, which was the letter than Jess had to pass to Charlie. When Jess hands the note to Charlie which was pristine, we have a close up, in which before we filmed it, Charlie had crumpled the paper, so in one shot the paper was perfect and the next it had been screwed up, which then wasn’t a shot which made perfect sense.

Location - Principally a marine leisure and property management company, providing a high quality client focussed service to customers, both water and land based. Ipswich Waterfront is a hub of activity with a mix of vibrant restaurants, cafes, interesting shops, apartments and awesome views of the water, overlooking yachts and powerboats, both traditional and modern. The entire wet dock regeneration area is rapidly developing with an ever changing skyline and growth.

The location we found was perfect, we had what we needed. We weren’t going to use much furniture at all, so it was functional for our needs. There was that sense of eerie-ness too it, compared to our last exchange, which was just at college.

The dock was easily accessible, but the disadvantages were the public who kept walking through our shots as we were filming which became frustrating. By the docks, there was such strong wind, which made it difficult to shoot at times, and if anything we were just too cold.

Performance- as actors expressions can be used to tell the story, we were glad we had chosen the people we did in the roles they were assigned too.

Charlie was able to portray that look of fear while Jessica was lurking around her, and with Jess she had a cold face on for the filming which meant she looked threatening.

We had no narrative in it which helped emphasise the expressions of the characters.

Lighting and Colour-The lighting was, just normal daylight, and we had no additions too it as there was no way we could use electrical appliances.

The lightening was decent, yet at some times the sun would come through the clouds and would be on the lens of the camera, making the shot overly bright. Too such an extent that you couldn’t see the characters face.
We couldn’t portray shadows as it as far too difficult being fairly dark day.
The end result of our video was put in black and white so the lighting did not affect it as much as it could have.

Example of Neo Noir

Sin City was all shot in colour. On set they were able to tweak lighting but pretty much kept it neutral so there was enough to play with in post. Once the plates were in their team started doing rough composites and turning them black and white getting the contrasts levels right, making sure the skin looked right and that the eyes didn’t get too dark. When it was starting out the look of the film was all graphic, almost no grey at all.

One of Frank Millers trademarks is his use of black and white, negative and positive images.
There’s a shot near the beginning of the film where 2 people are standing on a rooftop and the frame goes completely negative, what would normally be white is black, vice versa.

The challenge was to make the images work in a 3d environment where there's perspective, when you see things in 3d they change a little. Something very graphic that works in 2D panel can get confusing when moving. The start is contrast the black and white, trying to translate that too 3D and moving a camera through it. There was contained a lot of photorealism.
The scene where Jackie Boy and his ‘goon’s are killed in a comical sense, The blood isn’t red but glows white, making the scene more palatable for the audience

Individual Ideas for Noir project

Our final piece is too create a film noir opening sequence which is 3 minutes long. Here I will be publishing my initial ideas for the piece later on followed by our group work.


As the idea was brought up for the Film Noir opening, Charlie, Marc and I thought of many inventive yet overly enthusiastic ideas, all of which would be difficult to show on screen, with our lack of skills and equipment.

Our idea for the imposter was one of the main first ideas, yet it included the main couple being in a train accident, which we then narrowed down to a car accident. These we both found would be hard to capture or film in any sort of way, we then scraped the idea completely.

Overall many of our ideas were too complicated, involving many different characters in the scene, when we only needed roughly 3 main characters at the most, and Jon mentioned that the audience would not be able to figure e out the characters in such a short space of time.

We had this initial idea from a piece of work we had done for work previously looking for the history of film noirs.


2- First rough synopsis-

Rough Synopsis for a film noir

A woman unmarried survives a train crash and takes on the identity of a young bridge killed with her husband in the accident. She is accepted by the dead man’s wealthy family, but then the lover, Mark, finds her and blackmails her.

3- Synopsis-

A young thriving couple have finally arranged their perfect wedding day; a couple very much besotted with one another announce their love for each other in front of friends and family. There is one passerby, whom no one seems to notice, she looks on enviously at this young married couple, and carries on walking to her destination.

The couple are on their way to their honeymoon, when there has been a tragic accident, no one knows quite what has or had happened, and only that the husband is taken straight to hospital along with his newly wedded wife.

The consequences are devastating, and the husband has ended up with concussion and the wife in a dire state. After a short while the distraught husband has been released from the hospital and a woman manages to make her way into his life, and his family’s life, claiming to be his newly wedded wife.

This supposed wife is living the life she has always dreamed about, a family, a man who loves her, friendship, loyalty, love, respect, honesty? Reality?

She faces the reality and consequences of what she has done in the end.

Preliminary Excercise

Our preliminary exercise was the first video we created we were in a group of 4 containing me Kamal,Dillan and Charlie and Nicola. To practice using the camera's we were set the task of filming a short sequence including one character opening a door,walking into the room, sitting down with another character with whom they have a short conversation.

The main task was to make sure there was continuity throughout the sequence, so this meant using the 180 degree line rule, match on action and a couple of shot/reverse shots, when filming we also had to make sure everything was in the same position if we changed where the camera was (for example in a shot/reverse shot, making sure a folder was in the same place in the second shot as it was in the first, and the rest of the sequence).

It wasn't particularly easy and Jon was able to notice some small things that we hadn't picked on, the change of hair, or placement of a hand.
If the production didn't have quite a clear continuity the production looks cheap and very amateur. We had to re shoot some shots, this was because we had people walking through the shots as it was in the college hallways, or the sound of people talking, murmuring, so the microphone had to be put to better use for a level sound quality.

Our storyline is a teenage boy ring his friend while walking down the hallway to meet his friend to see which room he's in, he walks into the room, he sits down behind a table, with his friend on the other side then offers him a mint.
The audience feedback went well, our narrative and dialogue was simple, therefore easy to interpret what was happening on screen. As alot of us weren't quite sure what was good and what wasn't we didnt recieve much critisism as we were all around the same level of skill.

We used the 'Keep It Simple Stupid' using basic camera shots, such as mid shots, closeups and panning it helped us too keep it very simple, without confusing ourselves with trying to incorporate difficult shots for us and the viewer. During editing of the video we realised we'd have to leave handles and during our next productions had to improve on that, the meaning of handles was too leave a few seconds before and after the shot, this makes it easier to fit together with other shots, if you weren't too leave handles the production would end up very rough, short, and wouldnt flow well.